Roadblocks to Drunk Driving
Posted on:12/18/2006
Written By: Sheri Roan
Website: www.latimes.com
| Traffic-safety advocates say they have stepped up efforts to stop drunk driving, but have not made much progress, says Susan Ferguson, senior vice president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit, scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing crashes on the nation's highways. |
If you drink, don't drive.
The message has a distinctly familiar ring, but that's where similarities to past drunk-driving campaigns end. This year has marked a seismic shift in efforts by law enforcement groups, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other safety organizations to halt the behavior that accounts for 39% of traffic deaths.
Alcohol-related traffic fatalities fell dramatically between 1982 and about 1994, largely due to the efforts of MADD as well as laws to lower the drunk-driving limit to a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 milligrams per 100 milliliters of blood.
But that trend has stalled. Since 1994, alcohol-related driving fatalities in the United States have plateaued at around 17,000 per year, and, in California, between 2004 and 2005 they inched upward.
Traffic-safety advocates say they have stepped up efforts to stop drunk driving , but have not made much progress, says Susan Ferguson, senior vice president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit, scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing crashes on the nation's highways. "It was time to revisit this," Ferguson says.
Posted 12/18/2006 Los Angeles Times